Any advice on this Ash, nursery salvaged tree.

[dacoontz]

Hey all,

I acquired this tree last year around the spring time from a nursery going out of business up near Eugene, Oregon. I brought it home here in Southern Oregon and put it in the ground until this spring when I decided to go ahead and put it into a Bonsai pot. It was literally the last of my trees to open its buds. It does seem to move very very slowly. It has good initial structure but doesn’t seem to want to ramify, although it is really way too early to tell. As you can see from the pictures it has a great start with the nebari. It actually had a fairly good root structure also with lots of fine roots to some extent for a tree grown in a nursery pot.

Anyhow I’m simply not sure where to go from here. I did cut back all the shoots somewhat to see if this would stimulate new buds but there may be some moving. Anything I’m missing? Should I be fertilizing heavy right now? Best pruning techniques in these guys? Leaves with its slightly offset pairs gets me lost on where and when to cut.

Just looking for particulars on the tree as an ash, not bonsai styling per se. I realize branch set up isn’t perfect with some bar branching and multiple shoots from a single origin but they will be dealt with eventually. Doesn’t seem to be messing up the subtle taper it has, yet.

I really like the tree’s potential but not much too lose as I have a whole $10 + my time into it.

By the way, pot is a Vicki Chamberlin pot with a glaze that she’s recently introduced. Her stuff really is exceptional.

Thank you in advance for any advice.

 

[dacoontz]

Anyone? Seems there’s not too many working with ash.

 

[nuttiest]

I can't believe you go directly from ground to short bonsai pot. Was it already root reduced, or you did it all in spring?

 

[Bonsai Nut]

It appears to be a grafted tree, and if it is, you may have a challenge with that graft scar.

The struggle you are going to have with ash is that is has long compound leaves. You can't trim the leaves like a branch and assume that you will get buds to pop halfway down the leaf. The buds are all the way down at the base of the compound leaf. I have no experience with ash as bonsai, though I would immediately research how they respond to complete defoliation.

 

[sorce]

The base is nice, I'd keep them roots a little more covered so you don't lose any.

Any chance of finding out what it's grafted to?

Perhaps the base will sprout an old Reggie with better growth habits, then you'd be able to chop it low and keep the eye closer to the base.

Sorce

 

[dacoontz]

I can't believe you go directly from ground to short bonsai pot. Was it already root reduced, or you did it all in spring?

Nursery pot to grow bed for a season then to pot.

 

[dacoontz]

The base is nice, I'd keep them roots a little more covered so you don't lose any.

Any chance of finding out what it's grafted to?

Perhaps the base will sprout an old Reggie with better growth habits, then you'd be able to chop it low and keep the eye closer to the base.

Sorce

Good points. Roots got covered with sphagnum right after that first post.

No idea on what it is grafted on but wonder if I could research this as well as how it might respond to complete defoliation like Bnut mentioned.

Chop low, might just have to go that route. Thanks for the ideas.

 

[Potawatomi13]

A couple Oregon White Ash here and leaves VERY different from yours. Many more leafelets than personal trees and yours appear to have been shortened and of different shape. Cannot see ANY leaf buds your tree? Even bigger issue leaves on Ash are opposite, yours are alternate. Believe not Ash at all. Any thorns at all? As to graft: Meh! Not sure if barks will blend well or not. Time will tell.

 

[sorce]

Beware the sphagnum, it gets quite hydrophobic on the surface.

I had a hard time thinking why anyone would graft an Ash.

I believe @Potawatomi13 is right.

Sorce

 

[Lorax7]

I have an ash. About all I can tell you about it so far with respect to bonsai culture is that they can be air layered successfully. Here’s the progression thread for mine: https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/lorax7-ash-1-progression.52456/

 

[penumbra]

It does not look like any ash I have seen. I wonder............ possible a Mountain Ash, Sorbus?

 

[dacoontz]

I wonder if it isn’t a walnut of some sort. The plant ID apps are all over the place with their identifications.

 

[nuttiest]

well the bottom looks like fig, you say it was in the ground any type of winter protection?

 

[dacoontz]

Grow bed is packed pretty tight so other trees without leaf around it. There was also a shade cloth over it which gave it protection from frost. It was weeks behind everything else to open its buds. I thought it was a goner, but just really late.

Winter here in Southern Oregon was fairly mild this last year.

 

[DavidBoren]

I have an Ash tree I dug out on my yard last year because I was tired of running it over with the lawn mower... thing had to have tried to grow several times just to be mowed over again and again. Anyways, I stuck it in a gigantic empty planter pot we had sitting around, and I'm pretty sure a good 50% of the potting media ended up being coffee grounds. No joke, like two entire [if not more] cans/jugs of foldgers make up the majority of the "dirt" in that pot. That was a year ago, though, so she took it all in stride...

 

[rodeolthr]

The leaves do resemble something more along the lines of locust (robinia or gleditsia) Perhaps this is something like Purple Robe locust. Just a thought.